2014 HCA Award for Illustration – Part 5/6: Øyvind Torseter

Øyvind Torseter, is an artist, illustrator, comic book artist and author, who lives and works in Norway(Listen to the pronunciation of his name via google here). He debuted as a children’s book illustrator in 1999, and his first as author/illustrator was Mister Random in 2002, the release of which led to an intense discussion surrounding intended audience (can’t find any articles, but would be interested if anyone else does!).

From the IBBY site: “The pictures in his books normally appear as illustrations to the text, often authored by himself, but he also plays and experiments with perspective, cut-out drawings and other effects, before photographing it all and editing it with computer-assisted graphics tools. His comic books are influenced by Surrealism and some other works show traces, hints and tributes to art, literature, film noir from the 1950s and other expressions. Torseter has also decorated several public buildings, and his art can thus be found in many places in Norway.”

I am particularly fond of the effects he creates with 3-dimensional paper techniques in some of his picture books, but to get a quick feel for the scope of his art, google images – WOW!

I recommended My Father’s Arms are a Boat, written by Stein Erik Lunde , illustrated by Torseter for Perfect Picture Book Friday – HERE

I loooove his 3D works too! They’re like amped-up versions of Steve Jenkins’s art (which I also adore, but they’re much tamer). I read My Father’s Arms Are a Boat. Wow. (Tangentially, when I went to put in my review on Goodreads, I saw the freakin’ funniest review of that book…really, the funniest review I’d read in a while.)